LCBO Super Premium Beers Release

[Bytowner]

Bytowner: Any recommendations for a good British IPA? I tired the Greene King tonight and was pleasantly surprised. Not a world-beater, but under-rated on RB in m opinion. If this is a poor version, I'd love to get my hands on a "good" British IPA.

I'll generally take a Cascady-Chinooky American IPA over British most days, but I don't always feel like hop-monsters, so the Brithish versions are a nice alternative.

Unfortunately not really! We certainly don't have access to any of the good stuff in these parts. The last thing we saw was Deuchars, which is more of a PA (though still one of my favourite sessionables of all time!!!). I can't think of anything bottled I've had that would be helpful. My favourite beers have been cask IPAs that I've had in England and Scotland, I just appreciate the big, full bodied malt with the understated English hops as opposed to the oh-so dominant American hop examples. I actually haven't tried the Greene King, I'll have to keep an eye out, I'm sure I'll like it.

[Belgian]

I can't help but be slightly irritated though, given that it's only listed as an ESB on RB. I can't say what the IBU level is in this one, but I think it's unfair to call all British IPA's just ESB's.

All Pales and ESBs and IPAs are "Bitters" - and it does not always correlate to hoppiness if I understand this:

Sub-types of bitter --- Wikipedia
________________________

British brewers have several loose names for variations in beer strength, such as IPA, best bitter, special bitter, extra special bitter, and premium bitter. There is no agreed and defined difference between an ordinary and a best bitter other than one particular brewery's best bitter will usually be stronger than its ordinary. Two groups of drinkers may mark differently the point at which a best bitter then becomes a premium bitter. Hop levels will vary within each sub group, though there is a tendency for the hops in the session bitter group to be more noticeable.

Drinkers tend to loosely group the beers into:

Session or ordinary bitter

Strength up to 4.1% abv. The majority of British beers with the name IPA will be found in this group, such as Greene King IPA, Flowers IPA, Wadworth Henrys Original IPA, etc. Though bearing the name IPA these session bitters are not strong or hoppy. This is the most common strength of bitter sold in British pubs. According to the Statistical Handbook of the British Beer and Pub Association, it accounts for 16.9% of pub sales.

Best or regular bitter

Strength between 4.2% and 4.7% abv. According to the Statistical Handbook of the British Beer and Pub Association, bitter above 4.2% abv accounts for just 2.9% of pub sales.

Premium or strong bitter

Strength of 4.8% abv and over. Also known as extra special bitter, or ESB (in the USA only - ESB is a brand name in the UK).

[tupalev]

The following beers will be added to the LCBO General List (i.e. year-round availability) this spring as a themed 'Super Premium Beers' release:

LCBO # / PRODUCT NAME / % alc./vol. / Unit Size / Retail / COUNTRY
486951 / Young's Double Chocolate Stout / 5.2 / 500 / $3.20 / UNITED KINGDOM
69591 / Mort Subite Kriek / 3.5 / 375 / $4.05 / BELGIUM
402230 / Erdinger Weissbier / 5.3 / 500 / $2.95 / GERMANY
65789 / Greene King I.P.A. / 5 / 500 / $3.50 / ENGLAND
407973 / Samuel Smith's Nut Brown Ale / 5 / 550 / $3.95 / ENGLAND

Hey, now why is the Young's showing as discontinued? I would have stocked up if I thought it was a limited release!

[Torontoblue]

The following beers will be added to the LCBO General List (i.e. year-round availability) this spring as a themed 'Super Premium Beers' release:

LCBO # / PRODUCT NAME / % alc./vol. / Unit Size / Retail / COUNTRY
486951 / Young's Double Chocolate Stout / 5.2 / 500 / $3.20 / UNITED KINGDOM
69591 / Mort Subite Kriek / 3.5 / 375 / $4.05 / BELGIUM
402230 / Erdinger Weissbier / 5.3 / 500 / $2.95 / GERMANY
65789 / Greene King I.P.A. / 5 / 500 / $3.50 / ENGLAND
407973 / Samuel Smith's Nut Brown Ale / 5 / 550 / $3.95 / ENGLAND

Hey, now why is the Young's showing as discontinued? I would have stocked up if I thought it was a limited release!

Hopefully it is just the bottled version that's discontinued and they'll be bringing in the superior canned version.

[tupalev]

Hopefully it is just the bottled version that's discontinued and they'll be bringing in the superior canned version.

I was optimistically thinking that!

[Belgian]

Arriving from Germany this thread is salt in the wound - I am coming back to Earth from enjoying such an infinite selection of (mostly German) beer in bottles, all of which are barely weeks old and not stale from excessive pasteurization, shipping, light damage or from LCBO's product handling delays. It's like heaven.

Plus Chateau Bel Air for 3.99 Euros. A respectable Bordeaux for six dollars a bottle? The LCBO doesn't WANT quality affordable wines here, politically. People would buy those and leave the horrid ten-dollar crap they sell to rot on the shelf. This would undermine their ulterior 'quality tax' profit motives which are the bane of many a wine drinker in Ontario (IMO far too many 15-20 dollar wines here are an abject disappointment, or should cost far less.)

You can buy imported mineral water here for a buck, so the wine mark-up I fairly criticise is all pure profit motive. In their fifedom they explotively target a desirable product quite unreasonably and simply on the basis of how good it tastes - which is NOT their job as alcohol controllers (which should only concern taxing the alcohol content.) We now return to our regular topic.

[JerCraigs]

Belgian what are you on about? Is there some kind separate tax on good wines? I am not familiar with that personally. I assumed all wines were taxed the same, regardless of quality.... based on the alcohol content?

[esprit]

Wines are not taxed or marked up based upon alcohol content. The same taxes, mark-ups, fees, levies, duties are applied to all wines. Some are based upon volume (750ml) and others on a % of cost but all are the same. By contrast, in Alberta, mark-ups are a flat fee per case meaning that more expensive wines are cheaper as they are not marked up any more than a cheap wine and cheaper wines tend to be a bit more expensive than in Ontario.